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MAIN STREET 



BY 
LUCY M. SALMON 




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MAIN STREET 



BY 
LUCY M. SALMON 



POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK 
1915 



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Copyright, 1915, 

by 
Lucy M. Salmon 



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'CI.A414078 



OCT I ! 1915 

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MAIN STREET 

''And he sJioived me a street called Beautiful/' 

The main street of Apokeepsing is much like 
the main street of other cities of its size in the 
great river valley. It begins at the river, climbs 
a short steep hill, catches its breath on a shelving 
ledge, climbs another short hill, runs two miles or 
more to the boundary line of the city, and is later 
lost in the forked road that leads to the open coun- 
try. The stranger who enters it from the railway 
station and traverses it the long distance to the 
outskirts of the city holds it in ill-concealed scorn, 
or makes merry over its evident attempts to rival 
the metropolis two hours away. The adopted citi- 
zens who are daily forced to use it as a thorough- 
fare find it dull and commonplace and endure witli 
such resignation as is possible its shabby gentility 
and its sordid aspirations. Those who claim the 
city as their birthplace find it "not so bad after 
all." It is the politician alone who in the midst 
of a heated ward election finds it ''fair and lovely, 
the most beautiful street in the world." x\t all 
other times, to all alike, it is just Main Street. 

Yet Main Street and the streets that run paral- 
lel to it or that cross it at irregular intervals and 



MAIN STREET 



at varying angles liold the records that connect 
Apokeepsing with the very beginning of time. 
From the records that have survived it is possible 
to reconstruct in a measure the history of the past, 
to interpret the spirit of the present, and even in 
a measure to anticipate what its future will be. 
Main Street may not rival in beauty Unter den 
Linden or the Champs-Elysees, but it is possible 
that it surpasses them in inherent interest. If 
beauty is an undefined, even an uudefinable term, 
may not beauty be interpreted as including inter- 
est, and thus in a very true sense may not the main 
street of Apokeepsing really be "the most beau- 
tiful street in the world? " And if again the rec- 
ords seen on Main Street connect it with "the 
very beginning of time," may not Main Street 
make its humble contribution to the discussion of 
that perplexing question, "What is ancient his- 
tory? " And if once more the beautiful must be 
useful, will not the usefulness of Main Street in 
making this slight contribution give it still another 
claim to the distinction of being relatively, if not 
absolutely, "the most beautiful street in the 
world? " 

When did time begin? Ah, that we do not know ! 
But we do know that the slates and the shales of 
the rocky foundation of Main Street take it back 
almost, although not quite, to the oldest geological 
formation known, and that their quarried blocks 
form the foundation walls of Main Street build- 
ings, and that out of them have been constructed 



MAIN STREET 



the many miles of stone walls that mark the divi- 
sion lines between the farms of Dutchess County 
and between the great estates that border on the 
Hudson Eiver. The great river itself becomes a 
record of primitive means of communication when 
the waterways were the great highways for tlie 
exchange of products as well as for personal in- 
tercourse both warlike and friendly. Nature help- 
ed man before man helped himself. Main Street 
also records the changing seasons in the perma- 
nent signs ''skates sharpened," ''furs remod- 
eled," "sleds for sale," "buy an electric fan," 
"fireless cookers," "cold lemonade," and "hot 
ootfee." Thus Main Street, in recording geologi- 
cal and climatic conditions, takes us back to the 
primitive records of nature, even to the very be- 
ginning of time itself. 

What of the prehistoric period when the records 
of history were to be found in myth, legend, and 
tradition! Can Main Street contribute to these 
great classes of records that form the raw ma- 
terial from which history is derived before the 
records of history took on written form! Main 
Street, with its tributaries, does indeed take us 
far back to a period when mythology, legends and 
traditions antedated written records. The Phoenix 
Horse Shoe Works, the Hygeia Ice Company, the 
figure of Bacchus so frequently represented take 
us back to a period of time when the myth — ' ' the 
incarnation of the spirit of natural fact" — was 
the universal means 'of passing on beliefs in re- 



MAIN STREET 



gard to tlie past. Tliese are the records of classi- 
cal myths that have come down to us and with 
scores of others similar to them preserve for us 
the continuity of our own times with those of a re- 
mote past. 

But the formation of myth, legend, and tradi- 
tion never ceases, and age is not a necessary char- 
acteristic of their existence for they rise under 
our very eyes and quickly acquire the prestige of 
age and respectability. Many of the outside watch 
signs that designate the stores of Main Street 
jewelers show the hands pointing to 8 :17 and the 
explanation almost invariably given is that the 
hands mark the hour at which Lincoln died. The 
tradition has become well-nigh impregnable and 
it does not occur to those accepting this explana- 
tion of the fact so frequently observed to notice 
whether all watch signs do so mark the time, — at 
least three on the streets of Apokeepsing do not ; 
whether the hour of Lincoln's death was 8:17; 
whether watch signs were so made prior to 1865 ; 
and whether they so indicate the hour in the South- 
ern states and in foreign countries. The very 
ready acceptance of traditions so easily proved to 
be false becomes in itself a valuable record of the 
mushroom growth of many traditions, and of the 
persistence of their survival. The task of the his- 
torian in separating tradition from historical fact 
is not always so simple as it is in the watch signs 
of Main Street, yet wherever found and whether 
it has or has not the kernel of fact, the acceptance 

6 



MAIN STREET 



of tradition at its face value becomes a record of 
the deepseatedness and apparent ineradicableness 
of tradition. 

Ancient history has been brought down to Main 
Street through the spirit and substance of myth, 
legend, and tradition. It comes down to us also in 
the score and more of secret fraternal organiza- 
tions, — Masons, Odd Fellows, Moose, and Red 
Men, — that are but the appearance on Main Street 
of a time-old custom among men of banding to- 
gether in the hope of achieving certain ends 
through mystery, initiation, and secret tie. The 
Eleusinian mysteries of Greece never die, but un- 
der other names and with other rituals are per- 
petuated wherever men are found. 

The building materials and the building forms 
of ancient history have been uninterruptedly 
transmitted to us. The brick of ancient Egypt 
lives still in our buildings and our pavements, the 
concrete of ancient Rome, after a period of disuse, 
is so universally used that "the age of concrete" 
is becoming a designation of our own period, and 
the stone of the everlasting hills is still one of our 
great resources for building even as it was in 
ancient times. An imperfect model of a Greek 
temple overlooks Main Street from College Hill, 
Corinthian columns, Ionic columns and Doric col- 
umns lift their capitals on more than one building 
of Apokeepsing, while Roman arches are seen on 
every side. It is to the descendants of the ancient 
Romans, the Italians of our own day, that we turn 



MAIN STREET 



for the knowledge and for the practical construc- 
tion of the enduring roads that have made Eome 
famous. 

The languages of by-gone days live on Main 
Street in perpetual youth. The signs of chiropo- 
dists, dentists, manicurists, oculists, opticians, 
osteopaths, physicians, surgeons and veterinary 
surgeons; of dealers in agricultural implements, 
automobiles, bicycles, and motorcycles ; of adver- 
tisers, architects, auctioneers, confectioners, con- 
tractors, electricians, engravers, insurance agents, 
intelligence offices, machinists, manufacturers, 
orchestras, photographers, stenographers, sur- 
veyors, telegraph and telephone companies, and 
the name of the Municipal Building, all show that 
the classical languages are not dead but rather 
live among us in undying vigor. What a void 
would be left on Main Street were all signs re- 
moved that bear words of Greek and Latin origin ! 

Ancient customs too live in Apokeepsing. Sun- 
dials in more than one garden still mark the shin- 
ing hours ; the placing of inscriptions on all pub- 
lic buildings goes back to earliest days ; the urns 
for flowers, and flowers placed on the graves in the 
Eural Cemetery have fellowship with the burial 
customs of ancient time; every marriage cere- 
mony performed in Apokeepsing gathers up into 
itself customs extending back to primitive times. 
The ancient custom of distinguishing by dress, 
age, occupation, and social station is perpetuated 
on Main Street. The uniform of the postman, the 



MAIN STREET 



policeman, the conductor and the motorman of the 
trolley line, of the conductor and the trainmen of 
the railroad, of the messenger boy, of the bank 
janitor, and of delivery boys of business firms all 
record responsibility to public, corporate, or pri- 
vate business ; the white dress of physician, den- 
tist, and milkman record a belief in the virtues of 
sanitation; the clerical dress of the clergyman 
sets him apart from others and gives record of an 
ever-present readiness to serve others. 

The term "mediaeval" often connotes to many 
the so-called dark ages, but the records of the 
mediaeval period burn bright on Main Street. 
Narrow crooked streets, houses with the upper 
story projecting over the lower, high stone walls, 
basement rooms, gratings in front of basement 
windows, iron gates, iron grill work outside of en- 
trance doors, stone pillars, wooden turrets, stain- 
ed glass windows, small panes of glass, window 
shutters, — all go back to a period when danger 
lurked on every side. 

Main Street in its numerous rebus signs records 
a mediaeval period when illiteracy prevailed and 
education was the prerogative of the Church. The 
barber pole, tea-kettle, fish, watch, key, boot, shoe, 
last, foot, pair of glasses, large eye, horse-shoe, 
head of a horse, wooden horse, wooden hat, shears, 
three balls, red flag, saw, anvil, chair, wooden In- 
dian, large awl, and other emblems all record a 
mediaeval period when it was necessary to iden- 
tify every trade and occupation, not by the name 



MAIN STREET 



of the proprietor of tlie place which could not have 
been read, but by the symbol of the trade. The 
emblems of political parties placed to-day on elec- 
tion tickets are but survivals of ancient mediaeval 
rebus signs. Thus Main Street records the meet- 
ing of social extremes in its rebus signs on stores 
and the coats of arms seen on its automobiles, — 
both once a gTiide to the illiterate. 

Main Street records the trade organizations of 
a mediaeval time. The Chamber of Commerce 
finds its prototype in the great commercial leagues 
of Italy, the trade unions seem the outgrowth of 
mediaeval guilds, the order of the Knights Tem- 
plar finds descendants akin at least in name in the 
Knights of Columbus and the Knights of Py- 
thias, and even the system oi militia may make 
connection with military organizations of a medi- 
aeval time. 

A mediaeval industrial system survives in the 
terms "merchant tailor" and "journeyman tail- 
or" that record the rank of workers in the med- 
iaeval g-uilds. Eei^resentations of the Nativity 
are carved in wood in Apokeepsing, as for long 
ages they have been in Germany. Hand looms, 
carpet weaving, farmers' markets, stretch over 
long periods of time. 

Mediaeval customs hold sway on Main Street. 
The man who takes the outside of the walk when 
walking with another person perpetuates the spirit 
of protection that once was demanded in parlous 
times. The man who tips his hat assures the per- 

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MAIN STREET 



son he meets that, in mediaeval language, he is re- 
moving his helmet and therefore has no fear^ and 
when he extends his right hand he declares in the. 
same mediaeval tongue that his sword hand is 
free and that the person he meets need have no 
fear. All those who dine table d'hote at any 
Main Street hotel are figuratively dining at the 
host's table, — a custom that prevailed down to 
modern times and is still perpetuated in parts of 
Europe, although on Main Street, as elsewhere in 
America, it really means the way in which a meal 
is served rather than the place where it is served. 

Mediaeval superstitions are recorded in the 
horse-shoes that are seen over more than one door- 
way on Main Street, and in other superstitions 
that flourish undimmed by age. 

The records that originated in a more recent 
period are numerous and interesting. These rec- 
ords concern first the names and the external ap- 
pearance of Apokeepsing. Once known as the 
"city of schools," its educational interests have 
been supplanted by its commercial interests as 
indicated by the names ' ^ Bridge City ' ' and ' ' Queen 
City," and its confidence in itself is recorded in 
its advertisements of itself and of its resources 
through name and sign at the railway station. 
That it has entered on a period of expansion is 
recorded in the existence of the numerous subur- 
ban extensions found in every direction, while 
names like Fairview Heights, Fairlawn Heights, 
and Oak Dale Park suggest the attractions held 

11 



MAIN STREET 



out by real estate development companies to in- 
duce suburban residence. 

The external records show an excess of indi- 
vidualism, — streets have been laid out without 
plan, there is no common architectural or civic 
center and no town hall and these negative records 
indicate the lack of a common civic purpose. The 
very name ''Main Street" records the lack of 
imagination and ease in following the line of least 
resistance, — nearly a thousand cities and towns 
in this country have a "main street." The names 
of other streets record a desire to honor its citi- 
zens of all nationalities, — Adriance, Bayeaux, De- 
lano, Du Bois, Livingston, Zimmer. Political in- 
fluence and interest are seen in the streets named 
Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, La- 
fayette, Roosevelt and Washington, — the latter 
name, like Main Street, shared with nearly a thou- 
sand cities and towns. Geographical situation is re- 
corded in other street names lil^e Water, Front, 
Prospect, High, and Cataract. Accidental and 
temporary features are recorded in the names 
Academy, Mansion, Market, Mechanic, and Mill. 

Connection with the family of one of Apokeep- 
sing's wealthy benefactors is recorded in the 
names of Vassar College, A^assar Brothers Insti- 
tute, Vassar Brothers Hospital, Vassar Old Men's 
Home, and Vassar Street. That advantage has 
been taken of the prominence of this connection 
is seen in the large number of names that have 
been adopted from the Vassar name without fam- 

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MAIN STREET 



ily connection with it and presumably used 
through a desire to cater to the various Vassar 
institutions, as Vassar Pharmacy, Vassar Ladies' 
Tailor, Vassar Novelty Shop, and many other es- 
tablishments that have adopted the name of 
Vassar. 

The railway station at Apokeepsing records the 
passing of the railway restaurant. The ceiling of 
the waiting-room plainly shows the shifting of 
the partition that has diminished the size of the 
restaurant and increased that of the waiting-room, 
and this records the increasing use of the dining 
car, as this use in its turn records a desire to 
economize time by "killing two birds with one 
stone." 

The street signs indicating the names of streets 
record changes in method and time of travel.^ 
The cross-post signs on the outskirts of the city, 
record the beginning of country roads and slow 
methods of travel, while the street sign in the city 
has changed its location from fence to house, to 
business block, with occasional visits to the side- 
walk, and now, on Main Street, it is found on the 
electric light posts, — a record of travel by night 
and the necessity of signs and of lights that give 
information and warning to speedy travelers. 

That Apokeepsing has become an industrial 
rather than a purely residential city is recorded 
not only by its factories that fringe the river bank 

^ I am indebted to Miss M. L. Berkemeier for these sug- 
gestions. 



13 



MAIN STREET 



and border its outskirts, but by the general ap- 
pearance of its main and tributary streets. Two 
family houses and flats have sprung up by the 
hundred, while small, cheap stores, cheap restau- 
rants, furnished rooms, cheap amusements, and 
more than a score of public laundries record a 
population industrial in character and more or 
less floating in its domestic life. Congestion of 
population in more than one section of the city is 
recorded in the evident change of one-family into 
two-family houses, in the numbering of houses 
20-a or 2iy^ showing that houses have been erect- 
ed on the yards originally attached to other 
homes, in the large number of covered tenement- 
house outside stairways that have been attached 
to older residences, and in the architectural ex- 
crescences that have been thrown out for business 
purposes from many small but substantial houses. 
The citizens of Apokeepsing have left on Main 
Street many records of their origin and of their 
interests. The great original colonizing nations, — 
the Dutch, the French, the English, the Germans, 
— have all left their records here in architectural 
forms, in customs, in names and in language. The 
new nationalities that have been later introduced 
through immigration — not fewer than forty-two 
different nationalities can be counted in Apokeep- 
sing to-day — are also leaving their records in 
dress, in language, in physiognomy and in cus- 
stoms. The red fez of the Turk, the white turban 
of the Hindoo, the shoulder shawl of the Italian 

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MAIN STREET 



and a score of other forms of national dress have 
all been acclimated for a. more or less temporary 
period on Main Street. The needs of different 
races and religions are met by restaurants of 
Chinese, Italian, Roman, Greek, Hungarian, 
German, Austrian, and kosher characteristics. 
Practically every special national dish can be 
eaten on Main Street from the cookies and the 
roelichies of the first settlers to the fritto misto 
and chop suey of later comers. 

Main Street also records the other extreme of 
national influence that has come through importa- 
tion. Travel abroad, fashion, commercial compe- 
tition have introduced a thousand and one articles 
and customs that have been grafted on those in- 
digenous to America. French modes, Robespierre 
waists, Dutch collars, Irish lace, Hardenger em- 
broidery, regal and queen quality shoes are for- 
eign to the thought of the native American, but 
have come through a widening of the industrial 
and social circle. Main Street also records race 
prejudice,— until recent legislation at least two 
of its business houses posted the notice ''col- 
ored trade not wanted," while churches and clubs 
for the negro, and negro orchestras show a color 
line of cleavage among the citizens, perhaps in it- 
self a survival from the time when slavery existed 
in Dutchess County. 

Main Street with its double trolley tracks, its 
never-ceasing line of automobiles, delivery trucks, 
and vehicles of every description and motive pow- 

15 



MAIN STREET 



er, its constant stream of pedestrians, its trim 
sprinkling carts and street sweepers, its regular 
lighting-posts, its uniformed policemen, and its 
commodious fire-engine liouses seems sufficient 
unto itself and perhaps so thinketh itself. Yet on 
every hand there are the records of its connection 
with forms of government external to itself. The 
dependence of Main Street on the Federal gov- 
ernment is recorded in the post-office building, in 
street mail boxes, in uniformed carriers, and in 
the mail wagons of the parcel post delivery and of 
the railway connection. With every postage stamp 
bought, every letter mailed, every letter received, 
the man on the street maintains a friendly relation 
with the seat of government in Washington. Pos- 
ters calling for recruits for the regular army and 
navy and flags designating recruiting offices indi- 
cate a volunteer rather than a compulsory mili- 
tary service. The license displayed and the reve- 
nue stamps affixed to certain articles purchased 
record the connection between federal expendi- 
tures and the taxpayers of Main Street. The fed- 
eral geological survey has certified the official al- 
titude of Main Street in the inscription affixed to 
the Municipal Building. The Department of Agri- 
culture scatters broadcast seeds for the back yards 
of Main Street and it publishes daily reports and 
forecasts of weather conditions, the alien citizens 
of Main Street receive their certificate of arrival 
through the Department of Labor, passports are 
issued by the Department of State, federal census 

16 



MAIN STREET 



statistics are collected through the Department 
of Commerce, patents are granted through the 
Department of the Interior, pensions for military 
service are paid, government reports distributed, 
examinations held for appointments to federal 
offices, while every American coin and every Amer- 
ican bank note that passes through the hands of 
every citizen of x\pokeepsing has its origin in the 
federal government. These are but suggestions 
of the immediate and intimate connection, both vol- 
untary and involuntary, maintained between Main 
Street and the great executive departments of the 
federal government. With the legislative depart- 
ment of the federal government the voting citizens 
of Apokeepsing have also established friendly re- 
lations through sending one of their number to 
represent them there. To many citizens on Main 
Street the material capital of the nation seems far 
distant, yet is not its spirit ever present, and ever 
ready to perform a thousand services for them 
that they are unable to perform for themselves? 

Many records connect Main Street with the gov- 
ernment of the State of New York and indicate the 
watchful care the State maintains over its citi- 
zens, — to protect them from themselves, to pro- 
tect them from all who prey on weakness and 
ignorance, to help them do for themselves co- 
operatively what they are unable to do for them- 
selves individually. Diplomas "conspicuously dis- 
played" in the offices of physicians, dentists, and 
pharmacists are but a single illustration of the 

17 



MAIN STREET 



care taken by the State to protect the health of 
every individual citizen from ignorance and 
quackery. Factory whistles at five o'clock and 
the crowds of operatives pouring out from mill 
and factory record the purpose of the State to 
protect every working man and woman from those 
willing to take advantage of the necessities of 
labor. The great State hospital nearby is a record 
of the desire of the State to care for one large 
class in society unable to care for itself and need- 
ing the expert care that can not be given in the in- 
dividual home. The public highways that branch 
off from Main Street are records of the wish of 
the State to co-operate with its citizens in pro- 
moting all facilities for intercommunication be- 
tween all the Main streets of the State. Albany 
is not so remote as is Washington and the records 
of its interest in Main Street are evident to all 
its voting and its observing citizens. 

Dutchess County is still closer at hand and in 
material form it finds embodiment in Court House, 
in nearby Fair Grounds, in County House, and in 
the group of officials whose headquarters are at 
the corner of Main and Market Streets. 

At every turn on Main Street are the records of 
the oversight given the citizens of Apokeepsing by 
the city fathers chosen by the voting citizens. 
Protection to life, health and property are record- 
ed in tlie lists of offices posted on the walls of the 
Municipal Building, care for education on the walls 
of the old high school building, interest in whole- 

18 



MAIN STREET 



some recreation in public parks, and in play- 
grounds and school gardens for children, — these 
are but illustrations of the innumerable records of 
Main Street that show the control of the city by 
its own representatives. 

Thus wheel within wheel, — federal government 
and state government, county government and 
city government, — is the machinery arranged that 
cares for the complicated life on Main Street. 

There are other records of present-day condi- 
tions to be seen on Main Street besides those that 
indicate its external appearance, the nationality 
of its citizens, and the various forms of govern- 
mental control. Main Street is an epitome of all 
the records of industry and of commercial meth- 
ods that are known. Records of home industries 
are on every hand, — ' ' hand-made shoes, " ' ' home- 
made bread," jostle hard with ''shoes mended by 
electricity" and the great bakeries operated by 
electric power. The drift towards great indus- 
trial combinations is seen in the signs of the Na- 
tional Biscuit Company, and of the Union Pacific 
Tea Company, while international tendencies are 
seen in the advertising signs of the American Ex- 
press Company and the great telegraph com- 
panies; while still another development is re- 
corded in specialized industries like those of 
"Paper Box Factory," and "Queen City Under- 
wear." Concentration of like occupations has 
taken the tailors to Garden Street and the doc- 
tors to Mill Street. 



19 



MAIN STREET 



The evolution of business is clearly recorded 
on Main Street where at every turn the old jostles 
the new. The early stage of irresponsible busi- 
ness is seen in the stores that display food on the 
sidewalks, or exposed on counters, the stores that 
are heated by antiquated coal-stoves and lighted 
by kerosene lamps, where change is made from a 
till under the counter, where the windows are clut- 
tered with samples of nearly everything offered 
for sale, and the owner of the stock is often sales- 
man and errand boy combined. Newer methods 
have moved eastward on Main Street and heating 
plants, cash registers, overhead cash trolleys, pro- 
tection of articles offered for sale from the dust 
and dirt of the street, j^ackage groceries, and ar- 
rangement of windows that ''say something," all 
show higher standards of business. 

Yet side by side with these records are inter- 
esting survivals of still earlier methods of busi- 
ness. Royal patronage has, over seas, been the al- 
lurement held out to encourage custom, and the 
privilege of announcing ' ' shoe-makers by appoint- 
ment to H. M. the King" has presumably meant 
solid increase in sales made to the general public. 
Main Street records the same belief in the fre- 
quent use of the name Vassar, Eastman, and Glen 
Eden. The pseudo-coats-of-arms seen over cafes 
record an early transference to inn and tavern of 
the free hospitality once accorded by mediaeval 
castle. These and other illustrations are a record 
of business dependence on some outside patronage 

20 



MAIN STREET 



of an office, a social class, or an influential element 
in the commnnity. 

One of the newest class of records introduced 
on Main Street is that of keen business competi- 
tion. Human ingenuity seems fairly inexhaustible 
in the devices used to attract the custom of the 
passers-by. The bargain-hunters are earliest on 
the street and for them are offered the advantages 
of seasonable sales described in all the terms of 
the calendar months, and also as ''mid- winter," 
''spring," "Easter," "mid-summer," "harvest," 
"harvest home," "autumn," and "fall" sales. 
Special day sales appear for every day in the 
week from Monda}^ to Saturday and the special 
day expands in Hallowe'en sales. Thanksgiving 
sales, Christmas sales and holiday sales. Time 
sales are devised and "ten days' sale," "six days' 
sale," "morning sales," "one hour sales," "five 
minute sales," and "as-long-as-they-last sales" 
greet the early shopper. "Anniversary" sales are 
modest reminders of the personal element still 
left in business, but they are, unless accompanied 
by special attractions, presumably less effective in 
securing "results" than are other more sensa- 
tional descriptive terms. According to size and 
characteristics, Main Street describes its sales as 
' ' big, " " great, " " gigantic, " " mammoth, " " mam- 
moth publicity," "record-breaking," "sale of 
sales," "clean sweep," and "stirring." Main 
Street becomes "a business weather-vane" in re- 
cording general business conditions of the country 

21 



MAIN STREET 



at large as well as of the community. Sales are 
announced as ''bankrupt," ''sacrifice," "money- 
getting," "re-organization," "expiration of 
lease," "dissolution," "inventory," "removal," 
"auction," "closing out," "cost," "below cost," 
"fire," "flood," "insurance," "damaged goods," 
"reduction," "what's left," "shovel 'em out," 
"liquidation," "salvage," "eviction," "evacua- 
tion," "receivers," "forced," "cut price," "last 
call." Other appeals are recorded in sales an- 
nounced as "remnant and pound," "drummers,' " 
"samples," "mill-end," "good luck," and "horse 
shoe." Colors are pressed into service and sales 
announced as "red tag," "yellow tag," "green 
tag," and "white." And amid all this bewilder- 
ing variety of sales, Main Street occasionally of- 
fers a plain, humble "sale." 

Keen business competition is also recorded in 
the huge, unsightly bill-boards that line upper 
Main Street, in the business devices of guessing 
contests, trading stamps, and other methods of 
attracting trade. The trail of the advertising 
spirit is seen in the appreciation of what appeals 
to buyers, — stores are named on the one hand 
"Imperial," "Emporium," "Globe," or "Majes- 
tic," or on the other hand "People's," "Econ- 
omy," or "Square." Another appeal is made by 
places denoted "Smart," "Up-to-Date," "Up-to- 
the-Minute, " " Beehive, " or " Busy Bee. ' ' Prone- 
ness to attach unusual merit to articles originat- 
ing away from home gives rise on Main Street to 

22 



MAIN STREET 



"Paris Confectionery," ''Boston Candy Kitch- 
en," "Philadelphia Millinery," "Rochester Acad- 
emy of Music," "New York Waist Store," "Hud- 
son Lunch," "Yale Lunch," "The Plaza," "The 
Manhattan," and "The Mohican." The invasion 
and conquest of language by business is recorded 
in commercialized names like "restu mattress," 
and "uneeda biscuit." With the passing of the 
domestic parlor there has appeared on Main Street 
the commercialized parlor, — "ice-cream," "shoe- 
shining," "shampooing," "tonsorial," "mas- 
sage," "beauty," "hair-dressing," and "mani- 
curing," — all of them probably preserving the 
original meaning of the word parlor. 

Monopoly lifts up its head on Main Street in 
the wagons of the Standard Oil Company, the Gulf 
Eetining Oil Company, of the various national ex- 
press companies and of the great packing houses 
of Armour, Morris, and Swift. A variant of the 
single monopoly is found on Main Street in the 
representatives of the great chain stores seen in 
the Five and Ten Cent stores, the various tea 
stores, the United Cigar stores, and others with 
fewer links in the chain. 

If competition and the natural development 
from it of advertising as a business in itself are 
so plainly seen on Main Street that he who rides 
in the trolley may read the records, other records 
scarcely less visible are found. The great ma- 
jority of those who frequent the stores of Main 
Street are themselves wage-earners or they are 



23 



MAIN STREET 



purchasing supplies for those who are wage- 
earners. The appeal is made to this class of pur- 
chasers to "buy on the installment plan," — a 
fixed weekly wage apparently makes this an easy 
way of making weekly payments on staple articles. 
But the Main Street merchant is wary, and while 
the installment plan, or even the credit system 
may answer in the purchase of household furnish- 
ings and even of clothing, the merchant takes no 
chances on groceries but installs a cash register 
and tickets his store ''cash grocery." Coupons, 
trading stamps, and dividend stores, are de- 
vices for securing trade that appeal especially to 
the wage-earner and may be used with payment 
by installment, cash, or credit. 

That a large proportion of the population of 
Apokeepsing are wage-earners is recorded in the 
numerous bakeries, delicatessen stores, restau- 
rants of every description, public laundries, stores 
for the sale of ready-made clothing for men, 
women, and children, stores where standardized 
articles are sold as in the 5, 10 and 25 cent stores 
and the variations seen in the 3, 9, and 19 cent 
stores, in automatic scales, in street slot machines 
for obtaining candy, nuts and chewing gum, and in 
slot gas meters. 

Thus Main Street holds the records of all the 
changes in the industrial and in the business 
world that have come since ever Main Street was. 
Individualism, competition, and co-operation are 
all recorded, as are the domestic and the factory 

24 



MAIN STREET 



system of manufactures, the transference of the 
work of women from the horde to the factory, the 
rise of a great wage-earning class with fixed 
wages, definite hours of work, and consequent cir- 
cumscribed opportunities, and the long, long train 
of results that have followed. 

How may we reconstruct the past of Main 
Street from all these records, ancient, mediaeval, 
and modern? We can not indeed reconstruct the 
history of Main Street in its entirety if by his- 
tory is meant a chronological account of what the 
corporate city has done, but we can reconstruct 
its changing and successive interests, the different 
problems with which it has had to deal, and it is 
possible thus to know the mind and spirit of Main 
Street more perfectly than we can know it through 
formal history. We may reconstruct its means of 
communication with the outside world and see how 
these have been evolved, with all their ramifications 
and accompaniments through river, boat, steamer, 
ferry house; farmers' sheds, harness shops, 
horse-blocks, hitching posts of wood, iron, stone, 
simple and grotesque; stages, cabs, taxi cabs, 
and jitneys ; carriages, buggies, victorias, landaus, 
broughams, sulkies, and wagons ; push-carts, bicy- 
cles, bicycle racks, bicycle repair shops, motor- 
cycles; automobiles of every size, pattern and 
purpose, for business or pleasure, with their long 
train of garages, repair shops, gasoline stations 
and supply stores; baby-carriages and children's 
carts and express wagons; horse-cars, trolleys 



25 



MAIN STREET 



and railroads ; trail, log road, plank road, cobble 
stone pavement, dirt road, macadamized road, and 
pavement of every variety, — all means of trans- 
portation and all routes for transportation may be 
made to live again on Main Street. 

The history of Apokeepsing's enlarging inter- 
est in education may be written not only from its 
new high school building, but from the transfor- 
mation to other uses of the large number of build- 
ings once used as private schools. The State has 
enlarged and improved its facilities for education, 
the private school is disappearing, and a newer 
system of education and a newer organization of 
education is being developed. The collective state 
is doing for the individual what the individual 
can not do for himself. 

The results of the improvement in educational 
methods may be written from the records of the 
demands for even greater facilities and the re- 
sponse to these demands. Night schools, schools 
for foreigners, special classes maintained by dif- 
ferent organizations, lecture courses, increasing 
size and use of the public library, the size of the 
post-office, the increasing number of news-stands 
and of newsboys, — all this and more shows that 
education thrives by the very demands it itself 
creates, offers, and satisfies. 

The history of Main Street's progress on the 
road to health may be written from the records of 
hospitals, the board of health, the health officer, 
the health warden, doctors' signs, health notices in 

26 



MAIN STREET 



public places, quarantine signs, milk stations, 
sanitary fountains and drinking cups, an inspect- 
ed milk supply, and through other records, while 
it also shows the untraversed road ahead with its 
food exposed for sale unprotected from dust, 
cemeteries within the city limits, buildings uncon- 
demned, nuisances uncorrected, tenement houses 
insufficiently controlled, as well as minor oifenses 
against public health tolerated or excused. 

The records of Main Street enable us to recon- 
struct the changing ideas of charity and in a 
measure to forecast the direction future changes 
will take. Many of these show that the early so- 
called charitable institutions were private bene- 
factions and were palliative in their nature, — they 
represented efforts to care for the wreckage of 
life but showed little constructive work for social 
betterment. Later records show a growing sense 
of responsibility on the part of the community as 
a whole towards all of its citizens and an apprecia- 
tion of the advantage of preventing social, civic, 
and industrial ills rather than curing them after 
they have arisen. 

The records of Main Street enable us to recon- 
struct its religious beliefs and the organization 
of its ecclesiastical bodies; to see the develop- 
ment of its amusements, sports, and recreations; 
to interpret its ideas of patriotism ; to become in- 
timately acquainted with its hopes, its aspirations, 
its ideals, as also with its fears, and its discour- 
agements; to realize that Apokeepsing has not 

27 



MAIN STREET 



escaped the world-old struggle between the forces 
of good and of evil and that the forces of evil have 
not seldom been triumphant, — Main Street still 
bears the scars of conflict. 

All times, all races have contributed their rec- 
ords to Main Street and have made it what it is 
today. Whether seen from sidewalk or from trol- 
ley, the records unfold into a vast panorama far 
more wonderful than those of reel and of scenario. 
There is nothing of it that doth fade, 

''But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange." 




28 



^mmmmmmmM'^^$mm.s 



